11th: What did you think of the Harsh Realm pilot?

Hudnall: I thought it had some good stuff in it, but it's inferior to the comic, and everyone who has read the comic believes that; it's not just my opinion. The comic is more fresh. I didn't use virtual reality, I used pocket universes. It's more original. Other than that, it's very similar. Scene by scene, the parallels are very strong. He basically watered it down for TV. The problem is -- and I don't think he ripped off The Matrix -- but it comes off as a Matrix thing.
   Basically, what I think of the pilot is, Carter has a really big problem as a writer. He cannot write a tight script. His scripts have a lot of plotholes. There are a lot of big plotholes in the pilot, that I never would have done myself. But it was pretty entertaining. I think I would have written for a wider audience. Carter alienates women somewhat with that slapping around scene, which I didn't like too much.

11th: Most of his female characters are horrible. Scully, especially, has become a completely different character over the last few seasons of X-Files.

Hudnall: Yeah, I know. I'm known for being a really good writer with female characters. I write all characters as if they are people. I don't look at it as, "Oh, she's a woman, she's going to care about her nails," or something. I'm not interested in superficial, vacuous people. I write about people that have actual concerns and feelings and thoughts, because they're more interesting to me. My characters come off as strong and intelligent, and people have said that they don't come off as clichés.
   I think Carter has a tendency to write women as props. The Sophie character in the pilot, I thought she was a prop. She didn't have any real personality, per se. I applaud Carter for his productions, they are really nice-looking shows. His shows look movie quality, and they have a style to them that's nice, that I like. Unfortunately, as a writer, he just doesn't have the chops in some areas. But I'm encouraged by the fact that he's bringing in some good writers on the show, like William Gibson.

11th: When did you first hear that they were going to adapt the comic?

Hudnall: Well, that's funny, because originally my agent said that he had two people interested in this. One of them was James Cameron, the other one was Chris Carter. He said, which one do you want me to pursue? And I said Carter, because my agent was a TV agent, and Carter had a track record in television that I thought would be helpful. And I was an X-Files fan. I said to go with Carter, because Cameron has a tendency to buy properties and just sit on them for awhile. I love Cameron's work, but I didn't want him to sit on Harsh Realm. So I went with Carter. And there you go.

11th Do you have any further comments you'd like to make?

Hudnall: Just that I wish Carter would snap out of it, you know? No matter what has happened, I still would rather get along with the guy. I wish he'd show a little class and straighten himself out, because I want this show to succeed. I don't want it to fail. When he does things like this, it's damaging to the show. Fox has banked big on this show, and Carter has to make this work because he has nothing else going on. With X-Files going away and Millennium gone, he needs to get a hit. Anything he does that is bad for this show is bad for him, and it's a bad decision. And I don't know why he would want to make such a bad decision now.

For more information regarding the comic series Harsh Realm, visit the official website at http://www.harshrealm.com. James Hudnall is currently working on a number of interesting projects which you can read more about at his official homepage, http://www.thehud.com.

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